Dutch Vision V Irish Vision

The Dutch believe that football is learned by playing the game. They do not believe that the actions should be separate training sessions.

This means that everything in practice should include the natural progression of the game, regardless of theme. There should be a build up, goal scoring, preventing a build up, and denying scoring. Basically, Attacking, defending and transition.

Vision on Football

What’s the aim of the game? – What are the characteristics of the game? – What is the structure of the game?

The Dutch Way

Individual development and team development – Youth development is a joined responsibility of the Association and the Clubs – The best players play with the best against the best. – Talented players have about 6 training sessions and 1 or 2 competitive games per week. – Well educated and football experienced coaches for talented players.

Youth Development Process – “Developing Football Actions”

• At U6 the objective is simple. The players should be learning to control the ball, the fundamental stage.
• U7 through U9. Goal oriented actions with the ball. (Beating an opponent to score)
• U10 through U11. Learning to play goal oriented together. The players must be introduced at this age to the concept of needing each other to be successful. Understanding teamwork.
• U12 through U13. Learning to play from a basic task. This entails build up and scoring when in possession and disturbing a build up and preventing scoring when defending. This is accomplished by functional positional training that begins with simplified versions of the game tasks, then moves to 11v11 by the end of practice to see if there is transference.
• U14 through U15. Fine tuning the basic tasks as a team.
• U16 through U17. Playing as a team. The emphasis is learning to be a team player by understanding how the individual ability benefits the team.
• U18 through U19. Learning how to be competitive.

This is a very condensed version of the Dutch vision, but an interesting methodology with a  journey with a vision and a destination.

Let us look at Irish Way

I have my won way, you have your own way and they have their own way! Can you see the problem with ours? The problem is this, all clubs are doing something different, all leagues have different systems, some are competitive upto a certain age and some have intelligently introduced non competitive leagues. To be frankly honest I dont know what are vision is (I know what mine is) and the FAI have theirs! The player pathway was designed for player development from a young age, right up to the Training to win stage but the early phases can’t be implemented properly whilst we continue to have competitive leagues at 7s, 8s,9s and so on. Every nation should have a destination about what their playing style is, but we dont.

The difference between the Dutch and us is that everyone in Holland is singing from the same hymn sheet, Everyone in Ireland has the same song but the lyrics they are teaching are different.

I think the comparison speaks for itself. You draw your own conclusions.

TheDutchVision PDF DOC

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